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Trailer Watch: Savanah Leaf’s Earth Mama

A highlight of this year’s Sundance Film Festival and New Directors/New Films, the trailer arrives for writer-director Savanah Leaf’s debut feature Earth Mama. The film stars Oakland rapper Tia Nomore in her first acting role, playing a pregnant mother in the Bay Area with two children in foster care who she must fight to regain custody of. Earth Mama also stars Erika Alexander, fellow rapper Doechii and Euphoria season two addition Dominic Fike (who’s similarly a musician-turned-actor).

In his dispatch from New Directors/New Films, Nelson Kim wrote:

Earth Mama is earnest social realism of a kind that may seem familiar on the surface, but Leaf brings to it surprising textures and colors — first and foremost, Jody Lee Lipes’ breathtaking 16mm cinematography, which moves seamlessly from neorealist docudrama to poetic abstraction and dreamlike subjectivity. Leaf maps out the external circumstances that define Gia’s day-to-day existence, while also taking us inside her fears, frustrations and longings, aided immensely by Nomore’s emotionally transparent, deeply affecting performance.

Watch the trailer above. Earth Mama will hit theaters on July 7 via A24.

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